All the Way Home
by devovere
Summary: Traveling Woman, Part 10. A series of vignettes from the point of view of other characters, observing Sam through the turbulent weeks that follow Workforce through and just a bit beyond Endgame.
1. Naomi

_The premise of this series is that Samantha Wildman, designated madonna figure of Voyager, has an interior life.  
It isn't always pretty._

 _Trigger warnings: Neglect, physical abuse, and possible sexual abuse of a child are referenced/implied - not described.  
The in-canon death of a character who is minor in canon but major in this fiction series is referenced. _

_I wasn't a writer, until MiaCooper said I should be.  
Warmest thanks to her for opening that door and then beta-ing what emerged through it._

* * *

 **Chapter 1. Naomi**

Hot fudge sundaes are my favorite. We hardly ever have them. Mommy says it's a special treat, for celebrations, like my half-birthday. Yesterday wasn't anyone's birthday and I forgot to ask what we were celebrating. But we were all happy like a celebration. I was happy that Mommy came back from the planet, that she still remembered me, that we were never going back there. And that Uncle Joe was there too.

He didn't stay to tuck me in. I think Mommy wanted to do it. She keeps hugging me and staring at me without talking. I keep hugging her too. I think we were both scared, when we came back and realized what had happened to us. How they made us forget. I wasn't scared when I was there, but I didn't like it. My new mommy and daddy didn't hug me, and they seemed mad when I asked too many questions. They gave me nice stuff and I liked all of that - it mattered a lot that I had nice clothes and the newest computer and that we lived in a big house. But after I came back to Voyager none of that mattered, and it's weird to remember thinking that it did matter. It's weird to remember not knowing Mommy, or Neelix, or Captain Janeway. I remember being that girl, Alassi, from a little old ship where everyone died, and a lot of her feels like me but a lot of her doesn't, and when I think about it I don't feel right.

I was lying in bed, thinking about it. My tummy was hurting a little, maybe from the sundae or maybe from being worried all afternoon about Mommy. She had spent a long time tucking me in, and I'm pretty sure she thought I was asleep. I didn't hear anything but there was still a light on in the main room. I got out of bed and went to find Mommy.

The light was from the terminal in the corner. We don't use it much. I have one in my room and Mommy says she spends enough time sitting at one in the lab all day. She was sitting there in the dark in front of the terminal screen. I was behind her and I guess she didn't see or hear me.

I was going to climb in her lap like when I was littler. I wanted her to hug me again. But she was sitting there with her back to me and her hands were over her mouth and her shoulders were kind of shaking. Then I looked at the screen and saw a still holo of a little girl I've never seen before. She looked a little like me, blond hair and round face, but it wasn't me because she had a human forehead, no horns. The little girl wasn't smiling, and her hair was kind of tangled and messy. Her eyes were brown like my Mommy's, but … that little girl's eyes looked hard, like she was mad at the person taking the holo. Not mad. I don't know. It didn't look right, it didn't look the way my Mommy looks in our holos, the way she looks at me. And Mommy was looking at her and she was crying, but so quietly. The only reason I knew she was crying was because of her shoulders, and her breathing sounded kind of wet and broken up.

Before Quarra, I would have walked up and climbed in Mommy's lap and asked her who the girl in the picture was. But before Quarra, she wouldn't have sat in the dark room crying and I wouldn't have a stomachache from feeling scared. I … felt like she wouldn't want me to be seeing her right then, wouldn't want to tell me about the little girl. And I didn't want to make her more unhappy, and I was a little scared that she would get mad, or would stare at me without seeing me, like she did sometimes that first day back, before she'd blink her eyes and kind of … come back to life. Or that she would look at me with her brown eyes hard like the girl on the screen.

I tiptoed back to my bed and got in and curled up around my Flotter doll. And my tummy hurt and it took a long time to fall asleep, and I kept waiting but I never heard my mommy get up from her chair.


	2. Chakotay

**Chapter 2. Chakotay**

The problem with Quarra is that it is so much like Federation worlds, but without any Vulcans. And you can imagine how surprised I am to find myself saying that, given my frequent irritation with Tuvok. But it's true. If you can imagine all the technological arrogance of a new warp civilization, without any ancient stoic philosopher-kings to moderate things, rein in ambitions, slow the pace of discovery … you'd pretty much find yourself looking at Quarra.

Because I don't believe for a second that the mindwiping project was the work of a few bad apples. That was a polite fiction, told by them to save face, and accepted by us in the name of diplomacy and getting our people back as quickly as possible.

I assumed as much all along, but it was the Wildman family's case that clinched it for Kathryn. I think she had a hard time shaking off the last vestiges of her own mindwiping, the vague sense of contentment. It colored how she saw the whole planet, still, during our initial communications with the authorities. But everything we learned during Sam's re-entry, and during the abortive meeting with the people who had adopted Naomi, made it impossible to deny the truth of the situation.

The mindwiping conspiracy was so vast it could better be called an open secret, at least within the industrial sector's leadership, the labor and immigration ministries, and the medical system. There was too much coordination, too many workers tailor-made to the labor market's specific needs the very month they arrived. And far too little curiosity about where all these off-worlders were coming from.

That woman said more than she knew - Kubeki with the big house, when she remarked on Naomi's unusual curiosity. That said more about Quarran culture and its strategically manufactured silences and blind spots than it did about our bright little Naomi. Some curiosity on Kubeki's part might have led her to wonder at the convenient supply of off-worlder orphans to fill the homes of couples like her and her husband, casualties of their toxic planet's infertility epidemic.

I won't let myself think what would have happened to B'Elanna's child if she'd given birth there.

I shouldn't have led that away team. I failed Samantha and served Kathryn poorly that day. I knew I carried baggage from my people's historical trauma of forced relocations, assimilation, and stolen children. But I thought I could keep that separate from my professional responsibility to the ship. If I'd been listening to my gut, we would have declined tea, diplomatic offense be damned, and pursued obtaining Sam's records privately from the health ministry. Kathryn is the diplomat, the one who can compartmentalize her feelings from her duty. Someday I'll learn that when I try to follow her example I'm usually just deluding myself.

By the same token, I probably have no business trying to counsel Samantha now. But who else is there? Fortunately, she's undergone extensive counseling before and is cooperative. She's leading our sessions as much as I am. It was her idea to search the Federation databases for her own childhood records.

The mindwiping and false memories stirred up real memories that Samantha had laid to rest in adolescence; now she is revisiting them from the perspective of adulthood. She showed me a photo of herself at around age eight, a starkly-lit headshot from an intake form on her homeworld. She had never seen this particular holo and couldn't recall exactly which familial crisis she had just endured when it was taken. I studied the image - the child's expression so similar to every traumatized orphan I saw in the refugee camps as a Maquis - and asked Sam how she felt when she saw it.

"Sad," she answered. I waited. She needs time and silence to pull words up to the surface. Then she clarified, "I felt compassion. And not just for the little girl, then. For myself, now. I sat and cried. It … helped. It healed something."

"Good," I said. "That was good work, Sam. A big step."

There was still something in her eyes, something she was trying to say. I waited some more.

"I think -" and her throat closed on the tears that filled her eyes. I handed her a tissue, kept silent, pulled my own thoughts inward to give hers breathing room.

"I think I can try to tell Joe now."

"Are you still afraid he'll reject you when he knows about your past?" I didn't share her fear, but this wasn't about Joe and it certainly wasn't about me. It was about Sam and the price she'd had to pay for her secrets all this time.

"Yes. A little. But more afraid now of … of lying to him by staying silent. He knows something bad happened. He just doesn't know what, or when. He deserves to know."

"Why does he deserve to know?" I hoped I was phrasing it right. I was trying to mirror her statements to help her reflect on her own thoughts. I hoped she didn't feel like I was arguing with her. A couple of psychology courses at Starfleet Academy are not a counseling degree.

She answered, "Joe is a good man." I waited. We both knew that wasn't a reason. "He wants …" She touched her sternum. "He wants _in_. He wants to help me, to share my ... "

As she trailed off, I broke with the most basic counseling protocol and finished her sentence for her. "Burden. He wants to share your burden. Because that's what a good man does."

She noticed the roughness in my voice and looked back at me steadily. "I was going to say sorrow. But burden works, too. Anyway, he deserves to know."

I didn't try to dissuade her.


	3. Joe

**Chapter 3. Joe**

Quarra changed her. I can't get her to talk about it - it's always been hard to get her to talk about herself - but she's different. Like duranium where there used to be .. something softer, warmer. Oh, not that she's cold, at least not to me, and never to Naomi. But something that those mindwipers stripped away from her has never fully come back.

I'm not sure anyone else has noticed - I'm not sure how many people ever really notice Sam; she flies under the radar that way. They see a patient mother, a competent science officer, and their eyes slide on to someone more interesting, less predictable. But I see it, even if I can't quite put my finger on it. It's like she says and does all the right things, all the things she's always said and done, but if you pay attention you can tell that underneath it all she's done with everyone's bullshit. Or like she's not wholly here, some part of her mind always preoccupied now with other matters, other concerns.

A couple weeks after Quarra, the first chance we had to be alone together, I tried to draw her out, and she did talk, just a little. She said I deserved to know what was wrong with her - that's exactly how she phrased it: "You deserve to know what's wrong with me, Joe." She told me about the brain scans, the neural damage during her childhood.

I didn't ask what caused it, just kept rubbing her back slowly, and after a while, she went on. "My mother was an addict." Then silence - she tensed, held her breath, like she was waiting for me to say something harsh. I just kept rubbing her back, and she finally released her breath slowly and then told me a little more. "She wasn't there a lot. There were … boyfriends, sometimes." Her shoulders tightened, some memory triggered. A beat, then she consciously relaxed them and resumed. "Sometimes there was no one. I spent time in foster care." The tone of her voice when she said that … she could have used the word "prison," with that dead edge to her voice.

I remember consciously choosing to feel angry later, deciding to stay with her now, help her stay open to me. I remember I asked her two questions, which she answered without hesitating but also without elaborating. I knew foster care shouldn't have been so awful, not on Earth at that time, so I asked her where she was living then; she named a colony, one I didn't know much about except that it was remote, poorly resourced. And I asked her, "How old were you?" And she said, "Ten when it ended."

And the way she said that, I didn't have to ask when it started. I think it had always been that way for her, at least as far back as she can remember, probably farther. I thought of Naomi, remembered Sam's patient, attentive care of her own baby, and was filled with awe. I was holding my rage back but didn't have to hold back my admiration. Her head on the pillow was turned away from me and she didn't see my tears well up.

She told me one last thing. "When she died, I became eligible for adoption. And that's when I finally got lucky. They … took care of me, then helped me get into the Academy when I was older."

I kept on rubbing her back, a slow steady rhythm, her skin warm under my hand. When I sensed that she had said all she wanted, I thanked her for trusting me. Told her this only made me respect her more. That I wanted to know every part of her that she might choose to share with me, that I always would.

We don't use the word "love," and we don't talk about the future. That is part of the terms of our unspoken agreement. It maintains this as … an affair, for lack of a better word. Before Quarra, I never found it hard to uphold those boundaries. But now …

It isn't just Sam and what happened to her, you see. It's me, too. It's what … didn't happen, really. My re-entry went smoothly. Just like my arrival there in the first place. It turns out, I'm basically the ideal worker in Quarran terms. They didn't have to undo very much in me - just the way I arrived, and what sort of ship I was on, my engineering specialties. They left me my memories of Sam and Naomi, just made them a little more removed in time - like Anne and the boys, important but in my past. They took my hope of being reunited with either family. Just those few changes, and then they put me to work. And I worked. I was … content.

When I was first brought back, I thought it had been like that for everyone. This ship is full of hard workers. I'm not unique. But when I learned how much more deeply most of the others had been manipulated … and how Sam, gentle Sam of all people, had been made to suffer, not just in her situation on-planet but in her _mind_ \- the fuckers took everything good and gave her so much new that was bad, awful - all to more or less program her to accept abuse … I don't have words for my guilt, my self-loathing.

Of course I was angry too - am angry - we all are. There is a short list of people I would cheerfully kill given the chance, and several Quarrans are now at or near the top of it.

I would kill them for Sam's sake. But part of my anger is for the truth their mindfucking revealed to me. I have a really hard time accepting how pliable I was in their hands, how easy they found it to make my personal life blow away like dead leaves in autumn. Like all it took was a nudge, a suggestion, and I was fine with being alone and unattached, because after all I had my work, my important and highly-skilled work to do. I think I would have lived the rest of my life there, a contented bachelor moving up the ranks as an industrial engineer, feeling a little wistful from time to time for the women I'd loved, the children I'd lost, but with no drive to find or replace them.

Look how long it took me on Voyager to connect with Sam. She could have used more help when Naomi was younger. It's not like I didn't see them - it's a small ship. I just never really _looked_ , didn't think outside my own set duties, my own little world of engineering and missing Anne. Like this was any other deep space assignment, keeping my head down and my nose clean and marking time until I'd be home again. I look back now and I see a man who was deeply oblivious. Quarra's forced oblivion was a damn sight too familiar that way.

There are things Sam and I have always skirted around, ways we've kept each other at arm's length. Dreams we haven't let ourselves dream. Maybe … maybe it's time we accept that we'll be living the rest of our lives together on this ship, and we formalize things - divorces, remarriage. Maybe not. Maybe she would have a baby with me. She's let me assume nothing has really changed with her feelings since back when we started, and I've let her assume I don't want more.

This changes, starting now. It's time to stop sitting back and taking life as it comes. Life is too short for that. When I get back from this mission to retrieve the _Friendship One_ probe, we're going to talk.


	4. Kathryn

**Chapter 4. Kathryn**

It's been a long time since I had to write a condolence message to a crewman's survivors.

This one was even harder than those others. Maybe because now we're in direct contact with Starfleet, and so I knew, in real time, the heartbreak my message was causing. Maybe because it was Joe.

I have often said that Starfleet would crumble in a month without people like Joe Carey. Their competence, dedication, reliability, and steady temperament are what keep ships intact and flying, through good times and bad. By rights Joe should have been Chief Engineer when Lieutenant Honigsberg was killed during our transit out here. Joe had more than earned the job over a long and impressive career, moving up the ranks, proving his mettle. But he understood at once my decision to give B'Elanna the job instead - didn't just accept it, supported it. Even though she came into his department like a bull in a china shop. Even when she broke his damn nose. It's unreal how much he put up with over our years in this quadrant, without ever _once_ showing the strain.

More than I can say.

We didn't deserve Joe, B'Elanna and I. I'll need to check on her later, see how she's coping with this, on top of the pregnancy. Or maybe I'll just ask Tom. I guess this falls under his job description more than mine now.

Joe was the kind of man who would spend long shifts taking care of my ship, then his off-hours building this model of the very same ship. A craftsman's ethic and aesthetic. Focused. Patient. All in.

 _How can we possibly go on without Joe Carey._

That's what I was thinking when Chakotay entered Joe's quarters and found me staring at the ship in a bottle on his desk. We made small talk about the impressive detail of the model, how close Joe had come to finishing it. Keeping me above the surface of my own despair. Chakotay can read me like a PADD, sense my mood at a glance. Before he even gets a look at me, by now, I suspect.

I finally thought to ask Chakotay how Ensign Wildman had taken the news. He didn't answer immediately, and so I raised my head and looked directly at him. I knew that pain in his eyes, etched across his brow. You can see the same expression on my own face, in the recording I just sent to the Carey family via Starfleet. And that's when it hit me: at least on Voyager, close enough as makes no difference, Samantha is also Joe's widow.

Chakotay met my eyes, winced at whatever he saw there, glanced away. "It can be hard to tell with Samantha - she's very reserved. But I know she is taking this hard. They were close. He was a pretty key support in her life, and good with Naomi. She'll try to put on a brave face, to help Naomi through it, but … yeah. Sam isn't going to have an easy time with this."

We discussed plans for the memorial service. I asked him to oversee the details, consult with B'Elanna about any Engineering traditions, ask Ensign Wildman specifically if she would like to say a few words. To let me know if they want me to do anything in addition to the usual captain's lines.

I watched him leave, his broad back and determined, if weary, stride so familiar, so dear to me. As the doors to Joe's quarters slid closed between us I gasped silently. I was suddenly imagining that was the same view Samantha had had of Joe the last time she saw him, walking out the door to fulfill his duties. Red hair instead of black, gold uniform instead of red, but the same sight, the same feeling … and my heart clenched in my chest so painfully I cried out.

If I lost Chakotay … If I sent him, as I _always do_ , to see to the ship's business, to carry out the mission, and he were sent back to me dead …

Would they see me as his widow?

Would I even let them see my own grief?

 _Would I have a choice?_

I can't stay afloat, can't rise to the occasion. I thought I was encased in buoyant clear purpose, but I'm sinking like a stone in Lake George now. I was so filled with captainly pride, to have an actual assignment from Starfleet. To be set a task that would further Starfleet's mission, after more than six years of nothing but striving and failing to get my crew home. So proud to be doing Starfleet's bidding again, to be _needed_.

And it cost us Joe. Not worth it. Not worth whatever centuries-old data that probe contained. Not worth my sense of pride, my captaincy. I'd lay it all down now to get him back safe.

But no, that's not an option on the table. Never has been nor will be. Not while we're out here. My duty hasn't changed, and I'll be damned if I give in this time to the darkness that pulled me under in the Void.

I feel such guilt towards Anne Carey and Samantha Wildman. They loved the best of men, and my orders got him killed, for nothing worth the having.

And I feel such envy of them, too. They could love the best of men, a luxury I cannot afford.

I can only order such men to their deaths.


	5. Neelix

**Chapter 5. Neelix**

Well, one last goodbye to say, and then ... I'll be ready to leave Voyager.

When I commed, Samantha asked if I would mind coming to their quarters, instead of meeting in the transporter room. She said that she still wasn't getting out much yet. I hadn't really noticed, in all the excitement with the colony of Talaxians, and I'm more than a little ashamed to admit that. Of course, I could understand why she might not feel up to attending my farewell ceremony. It was just too soon after losing Joe.

I remind myself that I'm here as Sam's friend and not as morale officer, take a deep breath, and ring her door chime.

"Ah, Samantha!" I exclaim when the door opens. "How are you, my dear?"

She gives me her usual kind smile, but the dark circles under her reddened eyes tell another story. Her face looks thinner, and I can see that she's lost weight since the memorial service. I wish I had thought to bring her something from the mess hall.

We are sitting on her couch with tea when she says, in a soft voice, "Neelix. Do you remember, when Naomi was a baby, how you would help me get her down for her nap? And then we'd sit here on the couch and talk about all the latest ship's gossip?"

"Well, of course, Samantha - how could I ever forget that? In fact, did I ever tell you that our little chats on your couch were what gave me the idea for 'A Briefing with Neelix?'"

She tilts her head in puzzlement.

"Yes, it's true! Remember, you got so tired towards the end of your pregnancy, and you kept working so hard - why, you hardly had time to come to the mess hall some days! To be honest, I worried that you were getting a little isolated. So I took to dropping by now and then. And then I realized that there must be others on the ship who would also appreciate hearing my take on what was happening on Voyager. And the rest, as they say, is history!"

Listening to me, she has placed her hand on her stomach, as if recalling the long months she waited for Naomi's arrival. There's a wistful expression on her face as she says, "You're right, Neelix. I did get isolated then. It was even worse after Naomi was born, for a while. You were always so good about checking up on us, though."

"Well, you know me. I am happiest when I feel needed." She smiles at that. I go on, with a more serious voice. "I do hope you understand what it meant to me, when you made me Naomi's godfather. You know, the farther we got from Talax, the more certain it seemed that I would end up the only Talaxian anywhere I went. Especially after Kes left … well. You two felt like my only family, I suppose. There were times, you know, when Naomi was what kept me going."

She knows; she remembers. As her eyes fill with tears, she says in a thick voice, "Yes, I know, Neelix. She's all that is keeping me going now, I think."

Oh dear, I hadn't meant to make her cry, or remind her of her recent loss. But there are things that must be said, I think, while we have the chance. I pat her hand and take a deep breath.

"Samantha, it was always - _always_ \- the greatest joy and privilege to be such an important part of Naomi's life. I know there were times when you and I didn't quite see eye to eye about what she needed or how best to care for her." She is shaking her head, her hands over her mouth. "No, it's true. I didn't always know just when to step back and when to offer my help. I'm sure that sometimes you felt I was interfering, and I was and still am truly sorry for each and every one of those times."

"Neelix - please … You have _nothing_ to apologize for." I hand her a handkerchief; she is weeping openly now. "I - I don't know - _how_ I would have managed without you, those first years. I don't think I ever told you -" and then she is too overcome to speak for a while.

I apply another handkerchief to my own damp face, and my voice is a bit more husky when I say, "Never fear, Samantha. You didn't need to."

We sit in unaccustomed silence for a minute, each of us regaining our composure, then exchange wan smiles. I do not need to tell her that Naomi has outgrown her Uncle Neelix for the most part. Instead, I just say, "Naomi is so very grown up now, isn't she?" and Sam nods at me, sadly, still smiling.

I smile through my own wistful ache as I tell her, "Take good care of yourself, Samantha, and of Naomi, and please - stay in touch. This old friend is going to miss you, more than I can say."

As I return to my quarters, I think about what I did not say, what I never would have said to Samantha Wildman. That at one time I would have welcomed the chance to be more than Uncle Neelix to her dear little family. That she was one of the kindest, most welcoming and loving people on this ship, and that I couldn't have helped falling just a tiny bit in love with her, after Kes. But Sam had found Joe, and I never would have dreamed of trying to come between them.

I might be a fool to have felt this way, and I'm sure I am a coward never to have told her. But I know she deserves better. This is surely for the best. The crew will take care of her, and now I can go and take care of my own … who truly do need me.

I pick up my satchel, take one last look around at the quarters that have been my home these past seven years, and turn towards the doors.


	6. B'Elanna

**Chapter 6. B'Elanna**

It was just a casual remark; as usual, I didn't really think before I spoke. But in the end, it opened a door that I hadn't expected to find, hadn't known I needed.

I was walking - fine, _waddling_ \- from the turbolift towards the mess hall for a lunch that I knew I had to eat but that I also knew was going to give me heartburn, no matter what it was. My back hurt and I was short of breath before I was halfway down the corridor. Then the PADD I was holding slipped from my half-numb, swollen fingers, and I couldn't even see where it landed because my belly blocked my view. And I was half afraid that once I did spot it, I wouldn't be capable of bending down to pick it up - or worse, that I would try to and not be able to get back up without help.

My frustration spiked all at once and I more or less shouted at whomever happened to be passing by, "I am so _done_ being pregnant. Thank Kahless this kid is a Klingon and not Ktarian!"

Honestly, I didn't realize it was Samantha Wildman going past me, until she stopped, turned around, and met my eyes. I froze, horrified, started stammering out an apology … when she surprised me by bursting out laughing. I mean, she didn't just crack a smile - which would have been remarkable enough, given what she'd been through lately - she full-on _laughed_ for a good long time.

I was standing there in shock and would have remembered to get angry in another few seconds, but before I had time to do that, Samantha bent down, picked up the PADD beside my left foot, and handed it to me, saying, "Good GOD I remember feeling that way. I was begging the Doctor to induce labor by the start of my fifteenth month."

My jaw fell open. "Fifteen MONTHS?" I knew Ktarians gestate even longer than humans, but that's insane. "Klingons are only pregnant for 30 weeks. And the Doctor said a Klingon-human hybrid shouldn't even take that long. But I feel like I'm dying and I'm only at 28 weeks. How the hell did you do it, Sam?"

She looked at me. "Pretty much the same way you're doing it. Just … for longer."

"I'm standing in a public corridor having a temper tantrum."

"I mostly kept my tantrums confined to quarters. But I definitely had them."

"I find that hard to believe, frankly." By then we were moving again, albeit slowly, towards the mess hall.

"Why, Lieutenant?"

"Please, call me B'Elanna while we're talking about pregnancy tantrums." My hand went to the small of my back, pressing against the worst ache. "Because you always seem so damn serene, Sam. I don't think I've ever heard you so much as raise your voice to Naomi. I'm probably scarring my child's psyche before she's even been born." Whoops, that sort of slipped out. I tried to laugh it off as a joke, but I knew these stupid hormones had my volatile emotions written all over my face.

Sam suddenly got somber again - I think it's been her default mood since Joe died, and no wonder. I was trying to think of what to say to her when she looked at me with those calm brown eyes of hers and surprised me yet again.

"B'Elanna. You're going to be a good mother. Don't worry about that."

These were basically the exact words that Tom had been saying to me almost daily for months, but coming from her, Voyager's resident madonna with child, they landed differently. I went on the defensive. I half snarled at her, "Who said I was worried?" It sounded stupid even as it left my mouth, and I knew I was pushing away someone who was trying to be kind to me, someone who needed and deserved kindness herself.

Her face fell, or rather, it sort of … closed, like she'd thrown up protective shielding that dimmed the light inside. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. I shouldn't have assumed you'd be feeling the way I did. My apologies."

And then she moved quickly ahead of me to grab a tray, and she avoided my eye until she had finished her meal and left the mess hall. The heartburn started before I ate a bite.

I couldn't get the conversation with Sam out of my head the rest of that day. I knew I needed to apologize for snapping at her. You might think that being a half-Klingon famous for her short temper even _before_ she was heavily pregnant would mean never having to say I'm sorry, and mostly you'd be right. But that image of Sam's face closing down, in … disappointment? Resignation? It stayed with me.

When I thought of it all I could see was her at Joe's memorial service just a few weeks back. Sam stood straight and still, holding Naomi's hand, as the service was conducted. Every time I looked at her, her eyes were downcast and her face just looked … frozen. And yeah, I looked. We all looked. Sam and Joe had never flaunted their relationship - they both have spouses back in the Alpha Quadrant; they were discreet enough. But it's too small a ship to keep anything like that secret, especially if it lasts very long. And just from the things Joe said, the way they acted together in public, I'm pretty sure they were together, or at least close, for the past couple years.

These damn pregnancy hormones. I was more angry than sad, at the service, and had fully intended to stay that way. But … seeing Sam and Naomi on the other side of Joe Carey's casket, with my own husband, warm and breathing after the same away mission, his arm around me, our child squirming in my belly ... I had to look away, blink away tears.

I wasn't the only one, of course. The room was filled with the sound of restrained weeping. Men and women alike. Tom used a handkerchief. He knew better than to offer me one. I think the captain and Sam had the only dry eyes in the room, at least among those who knew Joe well. And I understood the captain. She had to be strong for the crew. But Sam? She was close to Joe, maybe loved him. I hoped she loved him; he deserved to be loved. But she just stood there, stiff and frozen except where I could see her thumb rubbing the back of Naomi's hand, then Naomi's shoulder when the little girl threw her arms around her mother's waist, sobbing.

It bothered me at the time but I figured everyone has their own way of mourning. I respected her dignity, I guess. But today, outside the mess hall, when I snapped at her and her face shut down … I guess it finally clicked for me. That wasn't her dignity. That was her pain.

And that meant I had hurt her, and I needed to go apologize.

I ought to have commed ahead but I really didn't want to get into it until we were face to face, and I didn't want to give her the chance to tell me not to bother visiting. The computer had said she was in her quarters, but I had to press the door chime twice before she opened it. She seemed surprised to see me, so I guess she hadn't asked the computer who was there first. She was in civilian clothing, something loose, and wasn't wearing any make-up, like she was ready for bed even though it was only 2000 hours.

"Lieutenant Torres," she said, with a note of surprise in her voice, but it was muted, like she was too tired to really feel surprised by my presence, or by anything.

"B'Elanna," I answered, and we stood facing each other awkwardly for a moment.

"Look, can I come in? It's been a long day and my back is killing me."

She glanced toward what I assumed was Naomi's closed bedroom door. Then she mutely stepped aside, gestured me in and to the couch. I picked a spot next to what I hoped was a sturdy armrest and somewhat laboriously lowered myself to sit. She waited a second and then sat too.

I took a breath. I hate apologizing. "Look, Sam, I need to tell you I'm sorry for how I spoke to you today at lunch. You were trying to be kind and it was really thoughtful. I'm not good at … accepting kindness, or really any kind of help, and I over-reacted. I'm sorry."

She looked at me with a kind of empty, numb expression. Then she said, "Don't worry about it, B'Elanna. I overstepped. It was disrespectful."

I couldn't let that go. "No, Sam, you didn't. And it wasn't. You weren't even wrong. I _am_ worried." I couldn't bring myself to say "scared" to this sweet-faced blonde human woman. "I worry I won't be a good enough mother to my daughter. It's … new, you know? Unknown. It's a lot, and I don't know if I'm really ready."

"I know," she answered simply. "Like I said - I felt the same way." She looked down at her lap, and I saw she was twisting her hands together, and her fingernails were short and ragged.

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Honestly, Sam? I wish I didn't know that. Because if _you_ had doubts about motherhood … I probably shouldn't even be trying."

She let that sink in, and a puzzled look grew on her face. She looked up at me and just said, "Why?"

And part of me wanted to tell her everything, about my mother and father, things I didn't even share with Tom until I was battling demons so hard I couldn't keep it inside any longer. I reminded myself that Sam was grieving, and she didn't owe me anything, least of all a dumping ground for my unresolved childhood issues.

"Let's just say that I didn't have the ideal upbringing. I don't want to make the same mistakes my parents did, but I'm not sure I know any other way. It …" I closed my mouth firmly, then opened it again. "It scares me."

She looked at me steadily for another moment. "I see," she said. And she didn't try to give me false reassurances like Tom would have. She let my stated fears hang in the air, breathing. And somehow I felt them start to dissipate like vapor as she sat there gazing at me.

Then she said, "I didn't have an 'ideal upbringing' either, you know."

"I … didn't know." I was a little startled and decidedly confused.

What she said next changed the whole atmosphere of the room. "I think Joe … would want me to … to trust you." And her eyes filled with tears. It was such a non sequitur that I wasn't sure at first that I'd heard her correctly. But then I realized that she was struggling with a secret, a painful one, and she was asking the best way she could for my permission to say more.

"Joe was a really smart man," I choked out. "I never went wrong listening to him." And suddenly we were both sobbing, and our arms were wrapped around each other's shoulders.

She told me, later that evening, about her mother, the years of neglect and instability, the abuse in foster care. And she told me about her adoptive family, who saved her, got her the help she needed, the schools and therapy. About her husband's unshakeable faith in her own essential goodness and how that gave her the courage to get pregnant. About doing research on infant care and child psychology and development throughout her long pregnancy. And, finally, about tuning into Naomi herself, and learning slowly to trust her own instincts as a mother.

"I'm glad that you think I'm a good mother, B'Elanna. But I wasn't born knowing how to do this. No one is. I was determined to learn a better way, and I did. And I'm still learning. You can too, and you will."

Those words were the gift I carried away with me that evening, and I kept them close for a long time.

But I guess, without knowing I was doing it, maybe I gave Sam a gift as well. I let her tell me her story and find in it a new kind of strength and hope. For me, another motherless, scarred mother, and maybe for herself as well.

We didn't serve on Voyager together for much longer, and I never had another real conversation with her, but Samantha Wildman was one of the bravest people I've ever met, before or since. I'm really glad I got to see that while I could.


	7. Anne

**Chapter 7. Anne**

Voyager has returned to the Alpha Quadrant, at least three decades ahead of schedule.

And just a few weeks too late to bring me my husband.

Starfleet had sent officers to our home to deliver the news of Joe's death. It was the scenario that every military spouse tries not to imagine but recognizes instantly: two crisply-uniformed lieutenants appearing unannounced at the door, wearing matching black armbands and somber expressions.

It felt unreal. All that registered with me, at first, was the thought that once again there would be no more letters. And no three-minute video call next month.

I had lived without these things from Joe in the years after Voyager went missing; I could do it again, my brain numbly reasoned. I had thought him dead before; I could learn to do so again.

Of course, I was in shock.

Still, I think I had never fully _expected_ him to come home, not even after contact was re-established. They'd had decades more to go. They were alone out there, and so very far away. I had had to be practical, to focus on getting my boys raised, on what I could control. Joe … hadn't been dead to me these last years - I still loved him, still sought to know and support him as best I could across the light-years - but my heart wouldn't let him be truly alive to me, either.

I had meant to think about that at some future time, to cross the bridge of ... resurrecting our marriage when there was more reason to anticipate it coming to pass. I'd had vague imaginings of grey hair and half-grown grandchildren at a disembarkation ceremony.

Thus an announcement from two black armbands didn't seem to change any of the salient facts on the ground too dramatically.

Like I said - in shock. The mind is slow to grasp that which it cannot see. It could all have been some perverse misunderstanding. Some part of me was withholding judgment as the rest of me went through the prescribed motions.

But then Starfleet had arranged for my family to view a recording of the memorial service held on board, delivered during the next day's Pathfinder transmission. It was a thoughtful gesture; I never learned who had created and edited the recording.

Watching Joe's service - seeing his casket - hearing the words of his captain and the tears of his crewmates - at that moment I realized the awful measure and finality of my husband's death, and knew myself a widow in truth.

And then, on a second viewing of the service, late that night alone in the bedroom that I still thought of as "ours," I got my first good look at the woman Joe had loved on Voyager.

His letters had spoken of Samantha Wildman and her daughter Naomi often enough that I'd had my suspicions. I wasn't surprised when I began hearing the rumors from a few trusted friends among the Voyager crew's families - the Delaneys, Sue Nicoletti's mother. They just felt I should know. I didn't confront Joe. When I was imagining gray hair and half-grown grandchildren as the setting for our long-distant reunion … it just didn't seem important. He would tell me, or he wouldn't. He would divorce me from the Delta Quadrant, or he wouldn't. There seemed to be little I could do and no pressing reason to force the issue.

But when the truth really sank in, that he was gone, not just far away, and that … another woman and her child had stood by his casket, instead of me and my boys … suddenly, somehow, it mattered very much. And I _desperately_ needed to know more.

When my terminal beeped that morning, an incoming call with a Starfleet logo, I expected to be hearing from another bureaucrat, handling details about survivor benefits. I smoothed my hair, reached for a PADD to take notes, and accepted the call.

Captain Kathryn Janeway gazed out at me from the terminal.

"Mrs. Carey. Thank you for receiving my call." Her voice was even more raspy than normal, if normal was what I'd heard in other transmissions before today. I wondered if she had slept since Voyager's dramatic arrival in the Alpha Quadrant a day and a half ago.

"Captain Janeway. I … wasn't expecting to hear from you. Congratulations on your successful return to the quadrant." My face felt stiff, and I hoped it didn't appear that way. I was dimly aware that my pulse was racing.

She swallowed. "I wanted to offer my personal condolences in real time without any further delay. I will of course plan a personal visit to you when I am at liberty to do so, but there may be weeks of debriefings first, and I didn't want to wait to speak with you. I … very deeply regret … that we weren't able to …"

Her lips were trembling. I could see that the formidable Captain Janeway was on the verge of crumbling under the strain, the events of the past hours and weeks surely catching up with her as I watched in slightly horrified fascination. I knew the feeling. I interrupted her.

"Thank you, Captain. I appreciate the gesture, very much." And then an idea sprang full-blown into my mind, which had been worrying away for weeks at the problem of Joe's death, and of his life aboard Voyager. And to spare her from continuing her speech, and to spare me from having to listen to it, for the first time in my life I dared to tell my husband's commanding officer what I wanted done for me.

By that evening, I was on a shuttle headed on an intercept course to meet Voyager. We arrived while Voyager was still three days out from Earth. Commander Chakotay was in the transporter room when I was beamed aboard with a handful of Starfleet officials. Security officers escorted them to meet with the captain, while Commander Chakotay received me.

"Mrs. Carey, welcome aboard, and please accept my sincere condolences on your recent loss."

"Thank you, Commander. It's a pleasure to meet you; Joe always spoke highly of you."

"I'm gratified to hear that. He was a first-rate engineer and a good man. His good opinion meant a great deal to me."

His demeanor was solemn, but warm. He inquired after my sons and asked about our domestic situation and future plans, as he escorted me to Joe's quarters. I had asked to see where my husband had lived and to have a chance to look through his personal effects, and to meet with crew members who had known him well. The commander apologized that Chief Engineer Torres was not able to meet me upon arrival, as she was recovering from childbirth, but he promised that she would visit me in Joe's quarters later that day.

"I sent the captain a list of the crew I hope to speak with. Did she share it with you?" We were outside the door to Joe's quarters.

He nodded, took a deep breath, and then said, "Let's discuss it inside." He entered a code and the doors slid open. I looked up at him pleadingly, suddenly sharply aware of what awaited me across that threshold. "Shall I give you some time alone first?" I nodded mute assent, then stepped into Joe's quarters.

Half an hour later, Captain Janeway walked in to find me sitting at Joe's desk, studying a model of Voyager in an old-fashioned glass bottle. Its missing nacelle had been placed next to it, precisely aligned with the model's orientation. I now cradled the nacelle with my fingertips, imagining Joe's strong and capable hands having done the same, sitting in this very chair.

I slowly lifted my gaze to the captain's face. "We have a drawerful of Joe's model spacecraft at home. Our boys make them too. But they've never done an Intrepid class. I wouldn't let them, while Joe was serving here. It seemed … trivializing."

She smiled at me, and while her grief and fatigue were visible, her pride and relief were as well. This was not going to be another scripted black armband conversation. I was suddenly very glad I came aboard.

I needed to hear about Joe's last away mission, the story of his murder. She walked me through it, adding details that had not been in the official summary report. She carefully recounted the Emergency Medical Hologram's efforts to resuscitate Joe and explained why the physical damage and the type of energy weapon, combined with the effects of transport at the moment of death, had made it impossible. These were hard things to hear, but necessary for me to understand. I was grateful for her unflinching directness, and told her so.

"In that case, Mrs. Carey … let me be direct about another matter."

I raised an eyebrow and waited.

"Ensign WIldman is on your list of crew you'd like to meet with. Why?" She had her no-nonsense poker face on, as if I were a raw cadet who needed to be intimidated into being truthful.

"I know about their affair. I want to meet her." My voice was patient, calm.

She didn't try to pretend shock or denial. "But why do you want to meet her? I won't subject a member of my crew to harassment."

"Captain, I'm not going to harass anyone. I just … want to talk to her. To ask her about Joe." My voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Only if she's willing, of course. Please."

Janeway studied me a moment longer, then said simply, "She's willing." She tapped her comm badge and summoned Ensign Wildman.

When Samantha arrived, the captain excused herself and left us alone.

We begin with awkwardness and formalities, unavoidable but thankfully soon over. After our first pause, Samantha takes a deep breath and says, "He was always coming home to you. Always. I need you to understand that."

Her face is open to mine. I do believe her, because her face is so guilelessly open and because what she says affirms the trust I always had in Joe's fidelity, his unshakeable commitment to our marriage.

"I don't think I ever really doubted that. Not even when I heard the rumors." At that, her eyes drop, and I see her swallow.

"We knew from the start that we couldn't keep it a secret. We didn't try to; we just … didn't flaunt anything, I guess. Out of respect for you and for my husband, and out of our own natures." She looks up at me again. "But rumors? If people are … sneering at him, now that he's gone …" Her cheeks are going pink - not with shame, I think, but with righteous anger.

"No. I don't think so. Mutual friends thought I should know, when they first heard talk of it, that's all. No one has mentioned it to me since he died. Out of respect, I suppose." I hasten to add, "I'm not angry, Samantha. Not with you, not with him. I just ... need to know, what happened, what you knew of him. I'll never get to know him again. Please. Just … tell me."

And she does. She begins with, "It was missing you and his children that drew him to me and Naomi, of course." And then she tells me the stories of their time together.

At the end, she says something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

"Joe gave me so much. Gave me things I didn't know how to receive, and helped me see how to do that too." She is looking straight into my eyes now. "I always knew that you had to be … a really wise and whole person, for him to know what he did, to give what he did. I owe you so much."

At the end, I confess my sins to her.

"I really wanted to hate you. I really did. I looked you up, I read about your work, your background." She gives me a sharp look, then masks it. "Once when I was feeling really angry, really … abandoned, I thought about contacting your husband. Misery loves company, or maybe I wanted revenge."

At the end, we forgive one another.

"I'm glad that he didn't stay alone. To have been alone and then died the way he did - " My voice breaks there. "I couldn't have borne that. I'm glad he had you. I'm grateful to you for giving him a family, here on this ship. I'm grateful."

"I am so, so very sorry, that we had to come home without him, that you don't get him back now. I'm so sorry, Anne."

At the end, we are both on our knees, clutching one another and weeping.


	8. Greskrendtregk

**Chapter 8. Greskrendtregk**

I am still soaring on the bliss of our reunion, seeing and holding my long-lost wife, meeting for the first time my half-grown daughter.

The week between Voyager's sudden return to the quadrant and the crew's disembarkation on Earth had been the longest of my life. Even speaking daily with Sam and Naomi - unheard of luxury - had only heightened my anxiety and anticipation. Many Voyager families felt the same way, but no one else had the added joy and terror of waiting to greet a child who didn't know them. I was half out of my mind by the time they walked off the gangplank and onto Terran soil.

I emerged from the crowd, made it halfway to them, and then dropped to my knees, felled by emotion. At first I could not tear my eyes away from the miracle that was Naomi, but then I did ... and was transfixed by Samantha's beautiful pure smile. I spread my arms wide, began to sob, and turned my face skyward, as they stepped together into my embrace.

That was hours ago, and … I am still somewhere in the upper atmosphere of this gorgeous planet. I am finally alone with my family - _my family, oh most delicious and treasured phrase_ \- and very soon will be alone with my wife. Samantha is tucking Naomi into bed in one room of our hotel suite.

After what feels to this inexperienced parent like a long time, Sam emerges and quietly closes the bedroom door behind her. "I stayed until she fell asleep. She's feeling a bit disoriented. She's only rarely slept down-planet."

I smile at her. "Will she sleep through the night?" I don't know my daughter's sleep habits. But no answer to this question could trouble me; everything about our Naomi is clearly perfect.

"I think so; she's exhausted from all the excitement." Samantha looks fairly worn out, herself. I reach an arm up to her, inviting her to join me on the couch.

She reaches out as if to take my hand, then pauses, seems to think better of it, and steps back. I lower my arm and wait.

"Greskrendtregk." She is still the only human who can pronounce my name correctly. But through my delight in this and all else, I can hear something in her voice. An apprehension. She is bracing herself to say something.

I take a breath and say, "Yes, Samantha. What's on your mind?"

She is trembling and has to steel herself to meet my gaze. "I had an affair. I love you, I never stopped loving you, but I had an affair on Voyager."

I blink at her. "Are you talking about Joe Carey?"

She blinks back at me. "Yes." Another blink. "Oh, god. The rumors." She hides her face in her hands.

"Hey," I say, gently, rising to my feet. I hesitate to touch her uninvited, but cannot abide her apparent shame. I reach out and very, very gently grasp her wrists, tug her hands away from her face. "I'm sorry," I say.

Through her tears, her expression is one of bewilderment. "You're sorry? _You're_ sorry, Gres? What are you _sorry_ for?"

"I'm sorry that he died. I'm sorry you lost someone close to you. And I'm sorry that I got so swept away today that I didn't think to even mention it until you brought him up just now."

"Gres, I don't think you understand. _I slept with him_."

Now I'm confused. "I assumed you had. Isn't that what an affair involves?"

She is gaping at me. Dimly I wonder if someday we'll laugh about all this. It feels like one of those comedic sketches, a series of misunderstandings through some trick of language. But our universal translators are working perfectly; this is a communications breakdown wrought by our years apart - and, I recall, our different cultures of origin.

"Sam, I'm Ktarian." Now she looks at me like I'm an idiot.

"Yes, dear. I'd noticed," she says, gesturing towards my horns. She is half-laughing and I wonder if we're moving towards edge of hysteria territory yet.

"We don't fetishize sexual fidelity." She knows this. We discussed it, when we were dating. Granted, it's never been an issue in our lives together, until now.

"God, Gres, I didn't have a one-night stand with him! I didn't … sleep my way around the ship!"

"I never imagined that you did, Sam! What is this about? What aren't you saying?"

"I'm _trying_ to say it, to say ... everything! I - I _loved him_ , Gres! I didn't mean to, I didn't even really _realize_ it until he was dead, and - oh god, that made everything so much more horrible, that I'd loved him and never told him. We only meant to help each other not be lonely, away from our spouses, we weren't supposed to fall in love. And I _swear_ it didn't - didn't touch my love for you, they were two separate things, there was room for both of you in my heart. I swear it, Gres."

"I believe you, Sam."

We look at each other for a long moment. Her tears have stopped. There is something vast and bottomless in her eyes. I speak first.

"You said you meant to help each other."

"Yes."

"And did he help you?"

"God, yes. So much."

"Then I'm _glad_. That he was there, when I couldn't be."

She lets me fold her into my arms at last.

I hadn't expected lovemaking this first night. Not so soon, after so long apart and so many changes. Hoped, perhaps, but never expected.

Samantha initiated it. At least, that's what I tell myself. I don't know what desires I might have betrayed along the way to her kiss, and whether she might have felt pressured. I hope not. I … need her to want me. This can't be duty, this can't be guilt, not when she seemed so full of passion for me. Please. Please be real.

I thought I was dreaming, when we joined together, after so many years of memories and dreams of that act.

That's what I gasped, lost in her embrace, sinking home. "I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming. My beautiful wife, the mother of my child."

Her eyes were closed, her face turned away. "No," she breathed, and I froze. She looked at me then, and spoke fiercely. "You're not. This is real. I'm here." And she pulled my face down to hers and kissed me hungrily, desperately.

We are still in bed; Samantha is deeply asleep, snoring a little, and my heart goes molten all over again at the sight and sound and smell of her. The first rays of Earth's sun are touching the wall opposite our bed when I hear a quiet gasp from the doorway and see our daughter standing there. She is looking at us with astonishment, but quickly looks down when she sees me notice her over her mother's slumbering form. She turns away and closes the door behind her.

I very quietly slip from the bed, dress, and go in search of Naomi.

"I'm sorry," she says when I appear.

"For what?" I ask.

"I should have knocked. I didn't know … Never mind, it's stupid. I'm sorry I woke you up."

"I was already awake. I'm glad you came in."

She shoots me a skeptical glance.

I realize I don't know what Naomi knows about sex. I realize this is definitely not the moment to find out. I change the subject. "I'm hungry. What kind of juice do you like with breakfast?"

Samantha pads out into the sitting area of our hotel suite, hair mussed, wearing a bathrobe. She sees me and Naomi at the table, Naomi eating breakfast, and her face somehow goes radiant with just the softest of smiles. This is it. This is the moment we've both been waiting for all these years. We're going to be all right.

(It is the last such moment we will have for some time, but I don't know that yet, which is just as well.)

"I can't imagine, Sam, how confusing it must have been, to wake up with all these new terrible memories and have to sort out which were false and which were true."

"It was … very disconcerting. But I wasn't confused about false from true. The new memories were false. The old ones were true, just … closer to hand, again."

I let that sink in, trying to make sense of what she is saying. "Again?" I echo.

"I'd had a lot of practice, over the years. In … not thinking about it. About what happened, what was done to me. I got good at not thinking about it. But it's not like I ever _forgot_ my childhood."

"Wait. You didn't?" I'm genuinely confused now.

"The Quarran mindwiping didn't uncover repressed memories. It just stirred old ones up, made me deal with them again."

"But … you never told me any of this, until now."

"Well, no. I didn't."

I stare at her, finally shocked. "Why not? Sam, we talked about our upbringings, our families - I met your parents. How did this not come up?"

"You met my adoptive parents."

A beat, as I try to absorb that. "Whom you never mentioned were _adoptive_?"

"Gres. Please. Try to understand. When I came to them, a clean break with my past was _vital_. I never would have … become a functioning person, succeeded in school or anything, if I'd been dwelling on my childhood. The therapists worked with me, helped me lay all that to rest and look forward. Forward is where I found _you_."

"And I have always been so profoundly grateful that you did. I love you. I have always loved you."

"I know. _I know_. And I'm so glad. I love you, too." She looks relieved.

But I'm not done. I'm shaking my head, confused. Not denying, not negating - just trying to understand. "I don't understand. I want to understand. You _married_ me. I was your _husband_. How could you not trust me enough to tell me this before?"

"It's not that I didn't trust _you_ , Gres. I didn't trust, period. I couldn't. I didn't know how."

I stop, collect my thoughts with care. This next question is important. "When I made my marriage vow to you, did you believe it?"

She raises her head with a stunned look on her face. "Of course, Gres."

"Didn't that require trust?"

She doesn't have an answer. That's when I know we're in trouble.

On the transport back to Deep Space 9, as Naomi and Samantha doze in seats across from me, I study their faces and make a mental list of things I know are true.

Samantha is my wife.  
I am her husband.

Naomi is my daughter.  
I am her father.

I love them both.  
I know each of them less well than is necessary.

We have all been through trauma during our years apart.  
Sam went through trauma before I knew her.

Trauma can be healed, with skilled help, time, and patience.

We can find skilled help.  
We have time.

I have patience.

We are not all right.

But we will be.


End file.
